Doughty looking to take McDavid out tonight, wants revenge

The Edmonton Oilers and Los Angeles Kings will renew acquaintances this evening when they hit the ice for Game 1 of their opening round playoff series.

The two teams have put on some epic battles in recent years, most notably during last year's 7 game opening round series. It's clear that these two teams do NOT like each other and judging by the words of Kings defenseman Drew Doughty earlier today, there's been no love loss.

Doughty explicitly stated today that he'll be targeting Oilers superstar Connor McDavid for a few good chances "to smack him" this evening in revenge for a questionable hit that McDavid laid on Kings defenseman Mikey Anderson earlier this month.

Here's the hit in question:

That's all well and good Drew, but the thing is that you have to actually catch McDavid first if you want to smack him.

In all seriousness though, I do expect Doughty and the likes of Vladislav Gavrikov, Alex Edler and Sean Durzi to play McDavid pretty aggressively tonight and for the duration of the series. As the saying goes, you can never expect to neutralize McDavid completely, but the more you can limit his impact on the game the better chance you have at coming away with a victory. The problem is that even when teams have done an excellent job of shutting down McDavid, all he needs is a single opportunity to blow a game wide open. Again, you can limit those opportunities but you can't expect to eliminate them entirely.

Having said all of that, there's obviously more to this series than just "The McDavid Show". The Kings are a deep team with balanced scoring and some incredible veteran leadership. The two teams are very closely matched and nobody would be surprised if this thing went the distance just like it did a year prior. Personally, I'm maybe more excited for this series than any other. You've got high end skill, veteran experience and a genuine hatred for one another. Game on, baby.